EARTH DAY : Volunteers work on keeping it green

Dozens of service projects throughout the area this Earth Day weekend proved it is easy being green if people work together.

Several projects throughout Chester and Montgomery counties brought groups of teachers, parents and residents together to beautify and preserve parks, an educational “outdoor classroom,” and even an historic cemetery.

In Pottstown, abut 100 parents and children from the Moms’ Clubs of Coventry and Pottstown and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints organized a beautification project at the Splash Park in Memorial Park Saturday.

When the day was over, new sod was laid, flowers, trees and other plants put in the ground and pavers laid to create a walking path.

However, Joy van Ruler, vice president of the Moms Club of Coventry, explained that the project wasn’t initially such an ambitious one.

“It didn’t start out this big,” she said, taking a break from digging up a garden, looking around at the dozens of people hard at work. The idea was initially to do some work at the Splash Park because it really needed some “sprucing up.”

“Honestly, we thought ‘Oh, we’re just going to go out and plant a couple flowers,’” van Ruler said. But one member of the Moms Club of Coventry who is also a member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was able to secure donations of the supplies to beautify the park from local businesses, and the project expanded.

“It’s very exciting,” van Ruler said.

Carolyn DiSandro, president of the Moms Club of Coventry, said doing a service project that focused on the Splash Park made sense for the club.

“Our kids play here, so many of the kids play here, and it’s nice to make it better for them,” DiSandro said.

Brad Meade of Poolside Plastering, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was among the many donors that contributed to the project, donating sod as well as labor and other supplies. In addition to doing something to help others, Meade said helping with the project was important to him because he has children and doesn’t live too far from the park.

Besides, he said, “it’s good for the community.”

Another Earth Day project that was under way Saturday was one where education was the focus. At Lower Pottsgrove Elementary School, about a dozen community members joined students and teachers to revamp their “outdoor classroom,” a small pond that is located behind the school and is used as a part of the curriculum for various classrooms.

First-grade teacher Sara Beaver said the pond was built about 5 years ago after fourth-grade teacher Matt Hartzell secured a grant to fund it. Since then, any classroom has been able to utilize the pond for lessons.

But through the winter months without much maintenance, the pond was looking a little shabby.

“The pond has deteriorated pretty much and we’re just having members of the community come out and help us out,” Beaver said.

Volunteers were pulling weeds that had started to overrun the pond and the fenced-in area around it. They were also cleaning out the pond so it could be reborn and maintained over the summer months by Hartzell, who would continue with the upkeep.

Beaver said the teachers scheduled the pond cleanup for Saturday “because it’s Earth Day (weekend) and we wanted to get everyone involved. It’s nice to have everybody out here all working together.”

While the students, teachers and others were busy at the pond, a small community of history-minded individuals were busy in the woods of Chester County, cleaning up what remains of an African American cemetery dating from the early 1800s along Coventryville Road in South Coventry.

Dan Flickinger, the vice chairperson of the Friends of the African Union Church of South Coventry, of FAUCSC, said he grew up in the area of the abandoned graveyard and recalled playing there as a child.

“This was kind of always known for the people grew up around here,” he said. “We used to play up here, it was kind of fun.

“A number years ago, we decided it needed to be preserved,” Flickinger said of the grounds. “It was a pretty unique history to have an African American (graveyard) from circa 1834 or earlier in this area so we started taking steps to preserve it.”

Flickinger said FAUCSC was established, and while none of the members are “professional historians,” several members have done a lot of research on the site to confirm there are graves at the site.

They have since created plans to preserve the ground and take steps to bring some dignity to the sacred land.

“Twice a year at least we’ve been starting to clean up,” Flickinger said. They were doing one of those clean ups on Saturday, coincidentally on Earth Day weekend.

“It was really abandoned ... so the first steps are just identifying where the graves are, the burials, because ... there’s three little headstones (but the rest) are just marked with nondescript stones,” Flickinger said. About a dozen volunteers, including children, teens and adults, were busy clearing downed tree branches and leaves and doing other maintenance around the grave sites.

Flickinger said the hope is to raise enough funds to put a fence around the cemetery and put a sign out there so the property is marked.